"Motorola Mobility has been granted an injunction against the distribution of key Microsoft products in Germany. The sales ban covers the Xbox 360 games console, Windows 7 system software, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. It follows a ruling that Microsoft had infringed two patents necessary to offer H.264 video coding and playback." But... But... The MPEG-LA, Apple, and Microsoft have been lying to us all this time about the safety of using H264 over WebM, with their supporters blindly parroting the party line? This surprises me greatly and deeply, and I dare say I have not seen this coming at all. Not at all. No sir. Not at all.

Well considering the Motorola Mobility merger with Google, I think many people will refrain from naming them a patent troll for their own personal reasons. The fact that they seem to be attacking companies left and right using FRAND patents doesn't seem to have any effect on them.

The difference is that this Motorola Litigation against Microsoft is an obvious retaliation.

And this is very different from attacking first.
Calling Motorola an "evil patent troll" on the ground that they strike back at Microsoft is like calling someone an "horrible violent man" on the ground that he is defending himself against an armed robbery.

There are situations in which it is completely wrong to say that both sides are "equivalent".
When there is a "wrongdoer" and a "defender", it is right to cheer up the defender, even if it has to use the same methods as the wrongdoer to be effective, and most of all, to teach him a lesson.

Don't forget that Motorola/Google has not been attacking about "anyone", just the major patent trolls which have attacked the Android Ecosystem lately. Which is "defense".

And this is very different from attacking first.
Calling Motorola an "evil patent troll" on the ground that they strike back at Microsoft is like calling someone an "horrible violent man" on the ground that he is defending himself against an armed robbery.

Good point. I was thinking the same thing. However, it's probably more complex than a silly blurb can explain. Sad, really, that we all have to worry about such things.

It sounds like that definition was arrived at by manufacturers who want to distance themselves from other patent holders who's primary business model is suing real manufacturers for royalties. And that's fair enough, clearly one business model is much worse than the other.

However it's kind of absurd to say the bad behavior of patent trolling can be negated just because of how the patents may be used internally. The same behavior deserves to be called the same thing regardless of who does it, so both deserve the patent troll label.

Well, I'm an Apple person so I aim to simplify. So I'm not in favor of all different kinds of patent trolls, with different levels of nastiness.

We all know that there are these companies that do nothing put try to acquire patents and use them to sue, never to make any actual products. These companies we can all agree upon are patent trolls.

Apple using patents to hold down competition is wrong, Microsoft using them to collect money is wrong, Motorola Mobility trying to ban Windows 7/Xbox is wrong. Still none I do consider patent trolls, because it's just a side effect of what they do and the kind of environment they operate in.

It's easier to state that software patents are wrong, because the cause all these nasty effects and that companies who do nothing else but collect 'n' sue are patent trolls. I don't think making subcategories adds anything or clarifies the situation.